light it up

13 festive light displays illuminating Houston this holiday season

Twinkly lights at night adds to the festive feelings of the holiday season. For Houstonians looking to add a little illumination to their winter festivities, the city has plenty of options to take in. These impressive installations offer incredible beauty and are sure to put people into the holiday spirit.

We've rounded up options from across the Houston area. They include staples such as Zoo Lights and Space Center Houston's Galaxy Lights as well as newcomers like Classic Christmas. All are sure to help attendees make new holiday memories.

Artechouse Holiday Spectacular
Running through January 5, 2025, this dazzling event blends digital art, interactive design, and ASMR to evoke comfort, curiosity, and festive nostalgia. Take a cinematic journey through whimsical ASMR-inspired visuals and soundscapes, or explore a dreamlike gift factory featuring floating Christmas bells, candy cane carousels, and thousands of dancing nutcrackers. XR Bar offers holiday cocktails and augmented reality for extra festive fun. Entry is available from 10 am to 10pm Monday through Sunday, with the last entry at 9pm. XR Bar is open Monday through Thursday from 4 pm to close and Friday through Sunday 11 am to close. Tickets start at $17.

Christmas Village at Bayou Bend
Cross a bridge illuminated with white lights and enter a magical world at historic Bayou Bend, the former home of Ima Hogg, now part of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Through December 30, this winter wonderland brings holiday cheer to the 14-acre estate with a trail of sparkling lights, carolers every night, a hand-crafted model train, animated projections, and activities like a cotton snowball toss, reindeer games, and sledding on a faux-snow slope. Tickets start at $18.

Cistern Illuminated
Go deep underground with this installation at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, where an immersive experience awaits from December 6 through January 26, 2025. Blending lights and sound, the decommissioned drinking water reservoir is transformed into a breathtaking spectacle, showcasing the Cistern’s repeating columns and their uncanny reflections on the surface of the water below. Concerts of seasonal favorites from the city’s choral groups add to the experience. Tickets are $15.

City Lights Downtown Holiday Magic Presented by Shell Energy
Back for its third year, this installation allows visitors to wander among 12 different villages throughout downtown. Expect sparkling lights, mesmerizing Christmas trees, social-worthy selfie stations, and many other activities. Most are free to enter, and a hop-on-hop-off holiday bus is available along the route, with tickets for $19.95. The lights run through December 31.

Classic Christmas
Head out to Memorial City Mall for this family-friendly outdoor installation, open through December 29. The highlight is the World’s Largest Christmas Light Maze, in partnership with Coca-Cola, and it’s the first time the installation has come to Houston. Activities include larger-than-life light sculptures, a market square with local holiday vendors, an ice-skating rink and snow slide, holiday-themed beverages and a 21-and-up lounge, live entertainment, and — of course — visits from Santa and Mrs. Claus. Tickets start at $21, with timed entry beginning at 5:30 pm.

Galaxy Lights
Space Center Houston’s holiday favorite returns, with light pods, an astronaut selfie lantern and walk-through space launch system rocket displays, s’mores fire pits, LED swings under the 747 Boeing Aircraft at Independence Plaza, and a host of activities to engage all ages. The installation runs through January 5, 2025, and tickets start at $19.95.

The Light Park
Typhoon Texas hosts this mile-long, drive-through experience. Guests will experience millions of lights synchronized to a mix of music by DJ Polar Ice. The lights run through January 5, 2025 and tickets start at $49 per vehicle.

Magical Winter Lights at Fort Bend Fairgrounds
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, this popular illuminated experience is open through January 5, 2025. New lantern displays transport guests into a dazzling winter wonderland, celebrating both the holiday season and global cultures. There’s also an acrobatic show, the fan favorite grand entrance castle, a dinosaur exhibit, and Houston-themed displays. The family-friendly carnival also returns, bringing joy with games, rides, and festive treats. General admission tickets are $27 with add-ons for the carnival available.

Houston Botanic Garden
The garden’s Radiant Nature display, open through February 23, 2025, captures the essence of the Lunar New Year with illuminated pathways and imaginative installations. It’s back for a second year, with dazzling displays incorporating parrots, lanterns, flowers, and more. Parking onsite is only available for those who’ve purchased a parking pass. Otherwise, guests will have to catch a shuttle at the nearby Monroe Park and Ride lot. Tickets are $28.50 with timed entry most nights. The first entry depends on the time of sunset.

Post Houston
Now through January 11, head to the roof of the downtown development for a Holiday Lights Celebration that features 100,000s of lights, a 25-foot Christmas tree, and multiple, holiday-themed activations — all with a fantastic view of the downtown skyline. Prices are $7 for weekdays and $10 on weekends. Children 5 and under are free.

Snow Glow on the Bayou
This breathtaking light and music spectacular takes place at Historic Allen's Landing Park from December 20 through 29. The immersive installation transforms Buffalo Bayou into a winter wonderland, with digital art projected onto a massive 4-story high, 6-story wide water screen, light displays on the bayou’s surface, festive music, and special holiday boat tours.Tickets are free, but attendees must register in advance online. Boat tours are $20.

Texas Winter Lights
This popular event returns to the Marriott Marquis in downtown. Gather at the hotel’s Altitude Rooftop and Pool for an evening of elevated cocktails, bites, and floating through the pool’s illuminated lazy river. For an extra fee, rent a private igloo, or go all-in and coordinate a proposal package to pop the big question in an exquisite surrounding. Tickets are $30.

Zoo Lights
Attendees can take in the sights and sounds of the season as they stroll through the Houston Zoo, transformed into a winter wonderland. New this year, the immersive Twinkle Trail takes guests through the zoo’s African Forest. Two cookie decorating stations will keep friends and families entertained at Twiga Café and Cypress Circle Café. A new holiday tree at the end of the Reflection Pool rounds out the holiday experience. There is a snow machine and lift chairs, trees wrapped in lights, and other festive fun. Zoo Lights runs through January 5, with timed entry each evening from 5:30 to 10:30 pm. Tickets, which start at $25.95, must be purchased online in advance.

Two girls running through a light display at Classic Christmas

Photo courtesy Enchant Christmas

Classic Christmas on the grounds of Memorial City Mall offers holiday fun for the whole family.

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Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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